Hammers and Knives
by Lafayette1777
Summary: Companion to "Sticks and Stones" and for season two episodes "Ascension" and "One Breath." He brings his fingers back up to his face, and the blood, her blood, stares back at him.


**Author's Note: This is for the season two episodes "Ascension" and "One Breath." It's kind of going along with my theme of emotional depth, which is what I was trying to get at with my fic "Sticks and Stones" which was for season one "Beyond the Sea." This fic, instead of focusing on Scully (who, as you probably know, is comatose) but is more about Mulder. As always, hope is doesn't suck and all reviews are appreciated!**

He checks his messages the moment he gets home, and it's like being stabbed.

Repeatedly.

His job has allotted him the pleasure of actually knowing what this feels like, and the familiar combination of fear, surprise, and rippling pain throughout his whole body is what slaps him across the face when he hears her voice. And then the breaking of glass, and her screams for help. Help from him. Help that he's too late to give.

He doesn't call for back up, just sprints for his car. At her address, the door is agape, rain pouring in and soaking the carpet. He takes a steadying breath and steps over the threshold.

He can tell with one look around that the apartment is empty.

He is attracted to the broken window in the living room, and the obvious signs of a struggle surrounding it. He bends down on one knee, reaches out slowly, so slowly, to the edge of the glass table.

He brings his fingers back up to his face, and the blood, _her_ blood, stares back at him. Only then does he call for back up.

m m m

There's a white hot rage inside of him, a rage that he's only felt once before. And that was twenty years ago, and his sister's still gone.

That cannot happen to Scully. That will not happen to Scully.

He barely has time to think about how the lift at Skyland stopped working. No time to think about how incredibly dangerous the climb to the mountain is. It's all adrenaline until he's got his hands on Duane Barry, his eyes searching for someone who's long gone.

m m m

He looks again at the blown up picture of Scully in the back of Barry's car. Her looks of indignation, rather than any of the pleading-for-my-life type thing you expect.

He clenches his jaw and gets made all over again, thinking of Barry. And that's how he enters the interrogation—with that white hot rage driving him forward into unprofessionalism. Great.

He chokes Barry until his mind, still fighting for sanity, shuts off his hand. He takes a step back, rubs his eyes, yells some more, and then storms out. Somehow he still doesn't feel better.

m m m

Margaret Scully is stronger than him.

She knows it's a lost cause while he's still clinging to her cross, when they have no leads and nothing to do but hope for something completely miraculous and mathematically insignificant. Maybe a mother can always tell. But it doesn't matter, because every time he looks at that tombstone he feels the shock of his own betrayal. That, somehow, by giving up the search for Dana is the same as pulling the trigger himself.

They get the call and it's like being hit in the head with a hammer—the first feeling is complete and utter surprise. This sends him running to the hospital, arguably losing his shit in an exceptionally unsuccessful bout lashing out. Afterwards, he knows he should be embarrassed for having to be dragged off by security, but he honestly doesn't care.

They tell him later that yes, she's alive, but she'd be better off dead. Scully had known this; she had, after all, put it in her will.

Which he had signed.

He still doesn't care, though, cause he sits by her bedside and pretends she's asleep, as though he's seven again and watching his grandmother die.

When you're hit with a hammer, the pain comes second, like a jolt through your whole body, before it centers on one part.

m m m

His contact, X, the new Deep Throat, whatever you want to call him gives him the tools to avenge Scully, who's off life support and will fade away in a matter of days.

He comes home, turns off all the lights and slumps into a chair, handgun loaded and waiting, just like him.

When he hears the knock, there's a moment when he thinks it's them, though it's only seven thirty and they wouldn't be knocking on the door. So he puts the gun down and finds Melissa Scully standing on the threshold.

"You should see her," she tells him.

He takes one look around the nearly pitch black apartment, before following her to the hospital.

There's a part of him that won't stop niggling the back of his brain. That patch of guilt that grows with each minute Scully doesn't open her eyes. Her involvement with the X-Files, her involvement with him, is what has put her in this bed. This is, in essence, his fault. Not just because of the tracking chip he sent to her to have analyzed, but from the moment she stepped into his basement office and he started to enjoy her company instead of being sensible about the occupational hazards. He could pretend for a while that things were fine, because they'd always made it out in one piece. But now, he just doesn't know.

He looks at the faces of Margaret and Melissa, sees no blame in their eyes. Maybe they don't understand his mistakes, or maybe they know Dana never blindly followed anyone cause she was just supposed to. He fingers the crucifix around his neck and waits, almost impatiently, for Scully's sharp intake of breath prefacing the flinging open of her eyes. He waits and waits and yet Scully doesn't seem to hear his prayers.

m m m

At home, no piece of furniture is left standing, no paper unruffled.

He steps into the doorway of the office and feels his stomach sink with regret. Soon his knees are sinking, too, and then he's inexplicably on the floor. He stares at his hands like they're foreign devices, like they're evidence in a murder case. He feels the sob well up inside of him, to his own dismay. He's lost his chance to avenge Scully, and now she can't do it herself.

m m m

After a while, he crawls to his couch, lays his head against the rest and stairs at the ceiling for God only knows how long.

The phone snaps him out of his stupor, but he doesn't reach for it. Just looks at the machine as his own recorded voice picks it up.

"Mr. Mulder, this is Dr. Daly. I have some news...if you're there, pick up. If not, when you get this message call back as soon as possible." He begins to leave his number, but Mulder picks up the phone before the doctor finishes.

"Yes?"

Daly gives his urgent information.

"Can you repeat that?"

"Are you okay, Mr. Mulder?"

"Yes, yes, fine, just tell me."

"She's awake. It's a miracle, but Dana Scully's awake."


End file.
